Nvidia’s Pascal GPU will support 32GB of memory

Nvidia will come in 2016 with the successor to the current Maxwell GPU for video cards and that chip will support 32GB of memory. The memory bandwidth with the Pascal GPU is three times as high as with Maxwell, claims Nvidia.

During the GPU Technology Conference, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang gave an update on his company’s GPU roadmap, including more details about the Pascal GPU, the successor to the current Maxwell. The amount of memory that the chip can handle is 32GB, where Maxwell can be equipped with a maximum of 12GB. The memory bandwidth will be three times higher as a result of the use of High Bandwidth Memory, also known as 3D memory. According to rumors, the upcoming high-end video card from AMD will also have HBM.

Pascal will also receive support for NVLink. Nvidia announced this interconnect late last year. NVLink should provide a significantly faster data transfer between cpu and gpu, and between gpus themselves, ‘five to twelve times faster than pci-e’. The interconnect also ensures that eight GPUs can work in a single system, where the maximum is currently four.

In addition to Pascal, Volta is also back on the roadmap. This appeared on the schedule in 2013, had disappeared during a presentation last year and is now returning. Volta should appear in 2018, two years after Pascal.

Finally, Nvidia announced the Digits DevBox. These are desktop systems that Nvidia makes especially for deep learning research and that are equipped with four Titan X cards. The price will be $15,000 and delivery will begin in May.